GAMBLING BOATS MAY GO NOWHERE, BUT CAPTAIN, CREW STAY AFLOAT

Douglas Holt, Tribune Staff WriterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

In his crisp coat-and-tie uniform with gold shoulder stripes, Capt. Greg Potts of the Southern Star is the spit-and-polish image of a seasoned mariner.

With Potts' steady hand at the helm, the 217-foot paddle-wheeler has plied the Des Plaines River for years, plowing through driving snows, flood-swollen waters and even gale-force winds with boatloads of gamblers on board.

But these days, Potts is more like the Maytag repairman of Illinois waterways than an old salt.

Since last summer, when a change in Illinois law allowed riverboat casinos to remain tethered at docks, the Southern Star hasn't budged an inch from its mooring in Joliet. Nonetheless, U.S. Coast Guard rules require the motionless boat to be staffed round-the-clock by a captain and a full crew.

"It took a lot of the fun out of it," Potts said. "It's like telling a racecar driver to sit still in his car all the time,"

As Illinois casinos undergo a peculiar evolution appearing to take them from rivers to land, there have been a number of bizarre side effects. A mall-like casino under construction in Rosemont, for instance, will include a section that floats, bringing it into compliance with state law allowing casinos only on boats or "permanently moored" barges.

There never were cruises; the boats have no windows and some got just a dice-throw from the dock before heading back. But when it comes to the oddity of forcing captains to guide a boat going nowhere, even some regulators regard the practice sheepishly.

"It's kind of a unique situation," said Lt. Jim Rocco, a Coast Guard marine safety officer based in Burr Ridge. "If you look at it from a practical standpoint, maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense to maintain these marine crews. [But] you can't pick and choose the regulations you're going to adhere to."

Harrah's, the Nevada-based gambling firm that owns the Southern Star as well as its companion Joliet boat, the Northern Star, currently spends more than $2 million a year on a rotating marine staff of more than 40, including captains, engineers, apprentice engineers, safety officers and deck hands.

Not that the casino is complaining. Dockside gambling has been a boon for business because gamblers may come and go as they please. The casino's revenues last year jumped a third, from $162 million to more than $216 million.

Some of the jobs performed by the marine crew would be needed with or without riverboat cruising. Engineers, for example, spend a good deal of their time maintaining the casino's air-conditioning and heating systems.

But without doubt, dockside gambling has left the marine staffs of Illinois riverboat casinos a bit out of place on the boats they used to navigate.

A visit to the helm of the Northern Star shows this much clearly: as a junior captain, Potts draws the short end of the stick in terms of accommodations.

While his pilot's house is barely big enough for a desk, chair, computer and control panel, the Northern Star's bridge is a luxurious, 59-foot-wide command post in the style of a cruise ship.

But the Northern Star, with its twin, 5-foot-wide propellers, isn't going anywhere either.

Overseeing both riverboats is Brent Willits, a beefy former tugboat operator who used to wear a red bandana while pushing barges up the Mississippi River.

His Harrah's title remains director of marine operations, even though the marine operations consist of nothing more than staying tied to shore.

"I'm a boat guy," Willits said. "To sit on a boat that doesn't go anywhere? I've done funner things. We're trying to make the best of a bad situation."

In some ways, dockside gambling has made Willits' life easier. Gone are the tense calls from captains negotiating the river in howling storms. No longer does he have to watch the Weather Channel religiously. No more do the boats pile up $50,000 monthly cellular telephone charges. Now the boats have been wired with conventional land telephone lines.

And his captains no longer have to worry about whether the Southern Star's faux smokestacks will tilt sideways at the press of a button--a maneuver formerly used to slip the big boat underneath low bridges.

In other ways, though, little has changed for marine crew members. Even though they are not cruising, routine cleaning, painting and repairing remain constant chores. There's no shortage of paperwork from the Coast Guard, Illinois Gaming Board and other authorities.

Theoretically, Illinois riverboat casinos could opt out of Coast Guard inspections needed to keep each vessel's required certificate of inspection active. Instead of being working riverboats, they could be reclassified as permanently moored barges.

That would alleviate the need to start up the engines for quarterly Coast Guard inspections, to maintain the boats' powerful drive systems and bow thrusters in perfect working order or, for that matter, to employ a licensed marine crew with a captain at the helm.

Currently, Coast Guard regulations govern every aspect of how the casinos are constructed, from the width of doorways to the steepness of staircases to the type of marine-approved wiring.

Permanently moored barges, by contrast, are treated by regulators as if they were on land.

So, the seemingly simple act of declaring an Illinois casino a permanently moored barge would require overhauling the interior to conform with state fire marshal and local building codes.

"They ran studies on it and concluded it was easier and more economical to keep the certification going," Willits said.

Harrah's has another reason to retain its seaworthiness certificates, which, once lost, are cumbersome to reactivate. Within a year, the casino plans to fire up the Southern and Northern Stars for five-day cruises to Downstate Metropolis, via the Illinois, Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. (Average speed: 5 m.p.h.)

Metropolis, where Harrah's recently purchased a casino, will inherit the Joliet boats, while Harrah's in Joliet is to get casinos floating on a pair of barges now being constructed as if they were on land.

Just like the casino planned for Rosemont, the new barges heading for Joliet will not include pilot houses, engine rooms or marine staff accommodations.

Such plans assume that a legal challenge to the casino law will fail. A lawsuit filed last year by Lake County investors seeking their own casino seeks to have the casino law declared unconstitutional.

If that happens, Illinois casinos would have to cruise again and Rosemont's casino could not be built.

Meanwhile, Coast Guard safety inspectors have shown no signs of slacking off since the advent of dockside gambling.

When one Harrah's captain abandoned ship recently to eat dinner, a Coast Guard inspector gave him a stern verbal warning.

"Now we serve them their food on the boat," casino general manager Tom O'Donnell said. "The captains sit in the cockpit and they stare at the street."